User:Elysia (AR)/International Physical Activity and Environment Network

The International Physical Activity and the Environment Network (IPEN) is...

History
Some of IPEN's precursors were regional studies that focused on one country. One was the Neighborhood Quality of Life Study (NQLS), which was conducted in the US by researchers Lawrence D. Frank, James F. Sallis, and Brian Saelens. Other forerunners were the PLACE study in Australia by Neville Owen and the Belgian Environmental Physical Activity Study (BEPAS) by Ilse De Bourdeadhuij. IPEN was launched in 2004 with the goal to promote study designs that would provide comparable results. It also sought to encourage international studies to overcome the limited variation of the built environment within single-country studies. The cofounders were Sallis, De Bourdeadhuij, Owen, and Jacqueline Kerr. By 2013, IPEN included several hundred investigators from more than fifty countries.

Adults
The adult study was undertaken in twelve countries from five continents. It had more than 14,000 participants ranging from age 18–66. A minimum of 500 participants were recruited from each country. Participants came from seventeen cities:


 * Adelaide, Australia
 * Ghent, Belgium;
 * Curitiba, Brazil
 * Bogotá, Colombia
 * Olomouc and Hradec Králové, Czech Republic
 * Aarhus, Denmark
 * Hong Kong, China
 * Cuernavaca, Mexico
 * North Shore, Waitakere, Wellington, and Christchurch, New Zealand
 * Pamplona, Spain
 * Stoke-on-Trent, United Kingdom
 * Baltimore and Seattle, United States

As of 2020, at least eight publications have resulted from the IPEN Adult Study.